Cape Town's municipal services a century ago

Abstract

Conditions in Cape Town in the 1880s left much to be desired, especially when one looks at it from the city engineer's point of view. A boom town at that stage with a total population of approximately 40 000, Cape Town offered few of the amenities associated with a modern city. The water-supply was inadequate until the completion of the Molteno Reservoir on Oranjezicht farm in 1886. The dusty unpaved roads had to be wetted with seawater in the dry season. However, they quickly turned into mud after the rains. Many parts of the town were unsewered, and where they existed the sewers very often were blocked by uncontrolled building alterations or the dumping of rubbish. No wonder public health was brought to a crisis at intervals by epidemics of typhoid caused by local insanitary conditions. Very dissimilar to those of today, indeed, were the problems the city engineer of this town, growing into a city, had to handle.